


falling through the ropes

by menocchio



Series: in the cave [1]
Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Erik is raised in Wakanda, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 21:54:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13843791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/menocchio/pseuds/menocchio
Summary: After mama died, his daddy started telling him about the Black Panther and Wakanda. Only bits and pieces: a fairy tale at bedtime; an old family story on a lazy afternoon. The idea that those two things could somehow be the same thing stopped Erik from understanding the truth for a long time.No one he knew had fairy tales in their family history.





	falling through the ropes

If he'd gotten to keep them, he knows there are things he would have learned from his parents. Discipline from his mother; conviction from his father. He could have traced the lines of an idea until it was perfectly formed instead of cribbing together hasty sketches from memory and improvisation.

Erik builds himself over and over from the ground up, but there's always something off, something missing.

Standing concealed in the cave with the other Jabari behind Warrior Falls, listening to a nation sing for his cousin, N'Jadaka (but really just Erik, he'll always be Erik) wonders if that missing piece was important.

***

After mama died, his daddy started telling him about the Black Panther and Wakanda. Only bits and pieces: a fairy tale at bedtime; an old family story on a lazy afternoon. The idea that those two things could somehow be the _same_ thing stopped Erik from understanding the truth for a long time. No one he knew had fairy tales in their family history.

He also didn't understand why his daddy spoke the way he did about it all. There was pride, of course, and longing too. More familiar was the regret and anger.

Looking at the tall man in the panther suit standing over him now in the hallway outside his apartment, Erik doesn't feel any of those things, just confusion.

Uncle James hurriedly closes the apartment door and kneels beside him, hands coming up to bracket his shoulders. Undisguised tear tracks stain his cheeks; it's shocking to see and, privately, somehow embarrassing to Erik.

“Erik,” James says, and his voice is suddenly all weird and wrong. “You must not go in there.”

Erik instinctively resists the insistent grip and tries to get past him. “Where's my dad?”

“Does he know our language?” asks the man in the panther suit.

Erik stares up at him. Before now, he's never heard anyone but his dad speak that language. He hasn't had a chance to learn much of it yet, but there's one line he's been told to memorize in case he ever managed to get to Wakanda; now, he straightens and says, not stuttering but baldly American in accent:

“ _I am N'Jadaka_ , _son_ _of Prince N'Jobu._ ”

The man stares down at him for a long time, expression unreadable but for its hardness. In the end he turns away without speaking to Erik at all. But he does say to James, in English this time:

“Bring him, but teach him never to say those words again.”

They both look sharply up at the departing figure, but Erik's quicker in shaking off his shock – he rips himself out of James's grip, ducks under his arm, and dashes for the door of his apartment.

“Erik, _wait_ – ”

Inside, left to cool rapidly like a microwaved burrito, is the end of his world.


End file.
